Biopsychosocialculturalspiritual and Historical Factors Influencing Practitioners’ Countertransference in Professional Dyadic Relationships

Abstract

This study explored the praxis of practitioners working in dyadic disciplines, both inside and outside of conventional psychotherapy, in an attempt to answer the question: How do biopsychosocialculturalspiritual and historical factors related to the phenomena of countertransference influence practitioners in contemporary practices? In doing so, the study also examined the ways in which countertransference literature and research produces, reproduces, and reinforces sociocultural biases and ahistorical mindsets within the field. The research employed a constructivist grounded theory methodology in order to acknowledge and honor the sociocultural, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical locations that the participants and researcher inhabited while exploring the circumstances relevant to them in this time and place in history. Thirty-three volunteers located in the continental United States and Canada participated in single, one-on-one interviews with the researcher to discuss the biopsychosocialculturalspiritual and historical factors that influence their professional dyadic relationships. The findings are presented with intersectionality in mind, which provided guiding principles and a vocabulary for working with critical theory. This framework helps to establish that assigned power functions as a systemic and social capital that consciously and unconsciously engenders a host of tacit assumptions, behaviors, and beliefs in practitioners and clients alike. Countertransference is a universal human phenomenon that occurs in everyday experiences. Awareness of, attunement to, and deliberately working with assigned personal and professional power aids practitioners to navigate inequitable power dynamics in practice that induce, produce, and reproduce countertransference experiences.